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m1ckeyb3rry · 28 days

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── THE GLASS PRINCESS // SIXTEEN

Series Synopsis: You wake up in a strange room with no memories, broken glass at your bedside, and a prince named Zuko as your only chance at figuring out who you really are.

Chapter Synopsis: You wake up to a palace conquered.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Zuko x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 7.2k

Content Warnings: complicated relationships (strangers to friends to lovers to enemies to strangers to lovers to enemies to lovers), amnesia, alternate universe, lots of secrets and lying and mystery

A/N: the last ba sing se arc chapter 😭😔😩 sorry if this wasn’t what you guys were hoping for but believe it or not this has been the plan from the start 😫

“Now, remember, Y/N,” Quynh said as you glared at the crystal you held in your palm. “Bending crystals is not entirely separate from bending normal rocks. The only difference is that crystals are slippery, slick-surfaced and unwilling to conform. Rocks, like the ones you’ve bent by accident, are malleable. They are agreeable to having their shapes changed. Stones can be bullied; crystals must be coaxed.”

“How am I supposed to coax an inanimate object?” you said, willing the crystal to change into something, anything. You were unsuccessful, though, as it stayed just out of your reach, stubbornly refusing to follow your directives.

“You must abide by the laws of this world,” she said. “Of which there are relatively few. But remember this, Y/N: it will always be more fitting for you to work with something than against it.”

You tried to implement her advice. Instead of envisioning a new crystal in your hand, you pictured each step that the current one would have to take to reach that next form. Then, without thinking of the final product, you bent the crystal to the form which immediately followed its current iteration, and then the form after that, continuing the pattern until you had turned the uncut gem into a glimmering, faceted diamond.

“I did it!” you said.

“Excellent job,” she said. “Do you see? Stones and rocks and dirt are the easy way out, the way which allows for taking shortcuts. With crystals and glass, you can never skip steps. You can speed up your moves until it seems like you are skipping steps, but you never actually can.”

“I do see,” you said. “No wonder most people avoid these more refined materials.”

“If you can become a master with even such delicate things, then nothing bar your own mental fortitude will stop you from true bending prowess,” Quynh said.

“Mental fortitude?” you said.

“Do you think of yourself as an Earthbender?” she said.

If you wanted Kuei to live, then there could only be one answer to this question. “No.”

“Then so it will be,” she said.

From that day onwards, you internalized it, internalized the thought that you could not bend anything but jewels and glass. Eventually, it became a truth of your existence, until your entire identity was built upon your Glassbending, until you could barely even be considered an Earthbender at all.

A week after Aang, Katara, Toph, and Sokka left, you awoke to the sound of screams in the hallway. You shot out of your bed, glancing out the window and affirming that it was still night; when you saw that it was, you wondered what could possibly be the cause of the commotion. It was only when you smelled burning did you realize that something terrible was happening.

Scattered through the kingdom as the army was, it had been impossible for you to consolidate a true force to defend the palace in time, and as most of the soldiers who typically served as your guards had been injured when Aang and his friends had stormed the palace, you had had no choice but to rely on the Dai Li for protection.

There was no doubting that the Dai Li were talented benders, of course, but their primary purpose was never to guard. They were meant to be stealthy enforcers, and entrusting them with the responsibility of protecting the palace had been foolish. A naive decision, based on Prince Zuko’s obsession with the Avatar, which you had so childishly thought meant you were safe from his attentions.

The acrid stench of smoke stung your nose and throat as you shoved on a pair of slippers, all the while cursing the luck which led to you only ever facing these kinds of threats in your nightclothes. The moon was high in the sky, watching you through your window as you rushed about the room, locking the door and then making your way towards your dressing room. If you could reach Quynh’s Den, then you could escape to Ba Sing Se, and from there…

No. If this was what you thought it was, then they would likely execute Kuei, so that they could take over the kingdom unchallenged. Escaping alone was not only the coward’s way, it was the route a fool would take; the best course of action was for you to meet with your brother and usher him to safety first. No matter what, the Earth King had to live. He had to survive. As long as he did, there was hope for the nation.

There was a knock on your door. You stopped moving immediately, waiting and listening, trying to discern who it might be.

“Princess, it’s us. The Dai Li,” said a gruff, masculine voice that you vaguely remembered to have heard before. Your shoulders sagged in relief. So they hadn’t been overwhelmed completely! There was still a chance. One ally was better than none, and for this agent to be knocking on your door so casually, he was likely not alone. Perhaps things were not as dire as they seemed from in your chambers. Relaxing, you ran over to unlock the door.

“Thank goodness,” you said. “I was so frightened that — that something had happened to you all. What’s the situation?”

“The situation?” the Dai Li agent said. Before you could move, he had Earthbent bindings around your wrists, forcing them behind your back. The rock cuffs were rough, digging into your skin and shredding it open, instead of smooth like they typically were, and he patted you on the shoulder when you yelped in surprise. “The situation is that you killed our Captain Chhay and threw our leader Long Feng into jail. Did you really think that you could still hold a claim to our loyalty after that?”

“I don’t understand,” you said. “You’re sworn to the Earth King!”

“We were,” another agent said, shoving you forwards. “And now, we’re not. The Earth King’s time is over, Princess Y/N, and so is yours.”

“You’re betraying the kingdom?” you said. “For what? For who?”

“The Fire Nation,” the agent who had cuffed you said. “They offered us something far more appealing than the short leash you wrapped around our necks — power. The power to run Ba Sing Se in the way we desire to. In the way it deserves to be.”

“The Fire Nation,” you breathed, stumbling as your head spun at the confirmation of your worst fears. The agent pushing on your back used a stone to prod at your spine for the brief slip. “They’re here?”

“That’s right,” the agent said. “And they’re most interested in meeting you. Aren’t you ever so flattered?”

“How could you do this?” you said instead of responding. “You’ve allied with the very nation trying to take over yours.”

“Didn’t you hear what we were saying? It’s more profitable for us to work with them than against them, and anyways, didn’t Long Feng warn you that you’d regret spurning him? This is that regret. Your final moments will be spent watching your kingdom crumble in the coup orchestrated by the man who once had nothing but your best interests in mind, and then you will be executed by the prince so that he can legitimize his claim on the throne,” he said with a shrug.

For some reason, though he had said so much, you could only focus on one particular detail: executed. The prince. Lee, or Prince Zuko, or whoever he was…he meant to execute you. He meant to kill you with his own hands. The person you had loved so much that you had allowed him entry to the palace was betraying you like this. He was going to execute you, and all for a throne, for the jurisdiction of a kingdom that would never accept him as their own.

You rounded the corner to a long hallway that housed the tapestries of your ancestors, the many faces which made up your bloodline. Your father’s likeness was there, hanging between your grandfather’s and Kuei’s, smiling down benevolently at his onlookers, his eyes sparkling even through the static image.

You had always loved staring at that tapestry in particular. Sometimes, looking up at it was enough for you to recall, dimly, memories of a man you had never met. Perhaps they were more aptly considered fantasies, ones of growing up while he was alive, sitting in his lap as he read you stories, wobbling after him as you learnt to walk and showing him the glass sculptures you made with your bending.

This time, too, you stared at him as you walked past, though the only thing you could think of was that you were going to face the same fate that he had. No matter that you had tried to escape it. No matter that you had run from the assassination attempts in Ba Sing Se. No matter that you had killed Captain Chhay in your chambers. No matter that you had exposed Long Feng’s treachery to Kuei. It was your destiny to be crossed. Just as your father had been murdered by someone who ought to have been loyal to him, you, too, would be destroyed by a person who you could not help but love.

Kuei was already in the throne room, kneeling on the ground, his head held down by the Dai Li agent who had replaced Chhay as the Captain. The new Captain grinned when he saw you, and then he jerked his head towards the spot beside Kuei.

The two agents escorting you pressed on your shoulders until you, too, knelt, though you did not bow your head, nor were you asked to. Subjugating a princess did not have the same gravitas as subjugating a king, after all.

“You,” you snarled when you saw who was positioned in front of the throne, in the same place that Long Feng used to always occupy. It was the same now. You could never stand up there with the rest of them. Regardless of who it was, you would always, always be below them.

“Y/N,” he said softly. “I — I know that you’re probably confused, but—”

“I’m not confused at all,” you said. “I know exactly who you are, Prince Zuko.”

His eyes widened, like he had not been expecting that, like he had expected a different reaction. “You do? How?”

“How does it matter? you said.

“Actually, I’d like to know, as well,” Kuei said from where his eyes were still trained on the carpet. “Are the two of you acquainted or something?”

“No,” you said.

“Yes,” Prince Zuko said at the same time.

“I don’t know you,” you said. “I knew a different person. A better one. He would never have done this to me.”

“You don’t understand,” Prince Zuko said. “I have to!”

“Says who?” you said.

“My father!” he said. “This is all I have left to do. I just have to hold the Earth Kingdom while my sister hunts down the Avatar, and then…and then I can go home.”

Your mind struggled to reconcile the two versions of him you were presented with. Was this the same boy you had argued about books with over tea? The same boy who had donned a mask and saved you from Captain Chhay’s attacks? The same boy who had always protected you without question? It could not be. That boy would never look down his nose at you the way Prince Zuko was now. That boy would never order your arrest the way Prince Zuko had. He would never make you kneel at his feet.

But he must’ve been the same person. There was only one reason you could say that with certainty: he was here, in the palace. He had found Quynh’s Door, which meant you loved him. That meant that Zuko and Lee and the Blue Spirit really were three aliases for one horrible, twisted being.

“Get on with it, then,” you said. “Kill me. Kill my brother.”

“Or don’t!” Kuei shrieked, shrinking away from the Captain’s touch.

“That’s your plan, isn’t it? You’re going to execute us so that nobody dares to dream of rebelling against the Fire Nation occupation. Without Kuei or his heir around, your coup will go uncontested. I know you know that already, so why are you procrastinating? You have us surrounded by Dai Li and Fire Nation soldiers alike, so get on with it,” you said.

You would get to see your parents. It was the only positive you could glean from the entire affair. If you were killed, then your mother, your father…you would get to see them.

“Do you want to do the honors yourself, your royal highness?” the Captain of the Dai Li said. You scowled. Your royal highness — he only ever should’ve called you that.

You had spent so long admiring the prince’s face that it was all but a habit at this point. Even now, you could not help yourself from slipping into it, gazing at him until your eyesight grew blurry from tears, your lip trembling from the strain of holding them back.

This was your fault. This was your fault. This was your fault. Your fault your fault your fault.

“You must think of me as a great fool,” you said. “To have fallen for your scheme so readily. I all but handed you the kingdom on a platter.”

“I don’t think that,” Prince Zuko said, swallowing, his expression softening for only a second before hardening immeasurably. “Look, can’t you just — just take her away? Put her in some jail cell or something! The king, too. We can deal with them later. For now, I don’t want to bother with them.”

“As you wish, sir,” the Captain said. “Do you want the Soldiers of Agni guarding her, or will it be alright if we use our own methods?”

“I don’t care,” Prince Zuko said. “Just as long as I don’t have to see her.”

Of course he didn’t. And why would he? He had never loved you. Everything had been a lie. He had been pretending. He just needed you to fall in love with him so that he could find Quynh’s Door. He just needed that foolproof method to enter the palace. Beyond that, what even were you to him? An irritation? A girl he despised? If you hadn’t told him that myth, would he ever have treated you as kindly as he had?

“We’ve been looking forward to this,” the Dai Li told you as you reached the royal crypt beneath the palace. “I don’t think the world’s ever hated a pair of royals as much as it hates the two of you.”

There was no point in fighting back, not when there were so many of them, so you could only shiver and squeeze your eyes shut as your back was pressed to Kuei’s. Stone rings encircled you two, tying you together to the point of near-asphyxiation.

“What are you doing?” Kuei wheezed. “What is the meaning of this?”

Please. Someone. Anyone. Father. Mother. Quynh. What is happening? Please help.

You were so cold, even though Kuei was so warm. You were freezing, in fact. You thought that you might die just from that.

Stone walls were erected around you, so close that it was as if you were standing in a coffin. There was the tiniest hole near the top to allow you to breathe, but other than that, there was nothing. You could not move even if you wanted to. You could barely see. For all intents and purposes, you had been buried alive.

“You wanted to be remembered as someone who loved his sister?” the Captain of the Dai Li said. “Let’s see how much you love her after this!”

“Let us go! I demand you let us go this instant!” Kuei screamed. “Hey! On my authority as the Earth King, I order you to free us! Free us, and you won’t be punished!”

“Good luck, Earth King,” another agent said. “I hope your meaningless title helps you in there.”

“No,” Kuei said. “No, get back here! Get back here, treasonous vermin!”

“Kuei,” you murmured once the Dai Li agents’ footsteps faded into the background and you were sure you were alone. “Calm down, brother. You are wasting your strength.”

“Calm down? What about this situation invites calm, sister? Do tell me!” he screeched.

“I’m sorry,” you said. “This is my fault. I know that, and I will do everything in my power to make it right.”

“Your fault? How can that be?” he said.

“I’m the one who let Prince Zuko into the palace,” you said, and then your silent tears turned into sniffles that grew into sobs. “Kuei, Kuei, it’s all my fault. Please hate me. Please abhor me, brother. It is my doing that has led to all of this.”

“How did you accomplish that?” he said, all annoyance vanished in favor of concern.

“Quynh’s Door,” you said. “Listen, I know you’ve never believed in her, but she’s real. She’s a spirit I’ve been visiting since my youth, and all of the stories about her are true, too.”

“But for him to have found Quynh’s Door means…” Kuei trailed off in horror.

“Yes,” you said. “I fell in love with him during the time I spent in Ba Sing Se. I am the world’s stupidest girl, and now the entire kingdom will pay for my error. You will pay for my error. It’s not fair. If anyone should be punished, it’s me.”

“There’s no point in assigning blame,” Kuei said. “We’re stuck here. They left us that hole so that we could breathe, but my guess is that it’s only to extend our suffering. They’ll wait until we’re weak and hungry and dehydrated, and then they’ll execute us.”

Was this the way things would end? Was there nothing left that you could do for your kingdom? Would you spend the rest of your life in this cage, leaving only at the moment you were to be executed by Prince Zuko?

“If only one of us was an Earthbender,” he groused. “Thanks a lot, mother! Father! Shan! What a load of good your bloodline did us!”

“What did you just say?” you said. He scoffed.

“What, religious piety wasn’t enough for you, so you’re taking up the filial sort now, too? Who cares if I’m being disrespectful? We’re going to die surrounded by our own element!” he said.

“Our own element…” you murmured. “Kuei. Stay very still.”

“There’s not much else I can do,” he said.

You remembered something Quynh had told you when you had first learnt to bend crystals. Stones can be bullied. Bullying was not in your nature, but what choice did you have? This was your own element. This was your birthright. You were not the princess of the Glass-and-Crystal Kingdom; you were Princess Y/N, of the Earth Kingdom.

Closing your eyes, you focused on the earthen walls around you, imploring them to recede, wheedling and cajoling them to back away so that you and Kuei could escape.

Nothing happened. You considered giving up, but if you gave up now, then it was as good as signing your own death order. Your own, and also Kuei’s. Taking a deep breath, you allowed only two sensations to wash over your body: the warmth of your brother’s back against yours, and the solidity of the ground under your feet.

You did not cajole or wheedle or implore anymore. There was no place for politeness or weakness. You had to command. You did not have to convince the stone — you had to demand it bow to your will.

There was the grating sound of rock-on-rock, and then the walls surrounding you and Kuei crumbled into nothingness. The stone restraints followed suit, and you heaved for breath, your muscles aching from the atypical exertion, though not unbearably.

“What just happened?” Kuei said. You slapped his arm.

“Keep it down. We have to escape,” you said.

“What just happened?” he repeated, though he was thankfully quieter this time.

“I’m an Earthbender,” you said casually, grabbing his hand and pulling him after you as you ran towards the exit of the crypt.

“You’re a what? Since when?” he said.

“Shh! Do you want to get caught or something?” you said. “And since birth, duh.”

“Forgive me for being confused,” he said sardonically. “It’s not as though you’ve appeared to be a nonbender for your entire life or anything! Oh, wait.”

You rolled your eyes. “Obviously, that was a lie. I kept it a secret from everyone.”

“Right, I picked up on that,” he said. “What I’m asking you is why? Why would you hide that? It would’ve been the kingdom’s greatest joy to finally have an Earthbender of Shan’s line again! It — it would’ve been my greatest joy, to know you could protect yourself!”

“They would’ve killed you!” you snapped, though you immediately swore when you realized you had been too loud. Looking around to make sure no one had heard you, you sighed in relief and continued to run. “Listen, I learned I could bend when I was a young girl. Around that time, I heard your advisors saying that, if I was proven to be an Earthbender, they’d kill you and instate me as a ruler instead. I couldn’t let it happen like that, okay?”

“Huh?” he said.

“You can’t die,” you said. “As long as I am there, as long as I have a say, you won’t die. It was within my power to hide my bending, so that’s what I did.”

“Y/N…you gave up such a large piece of your identity for me?” he said.

“Yes,” you said. “I’d give up more, too. You’re the only one I have left, Kuei, or maybe it’s that you’re the only one I’ve ever had. Anyways, I learnt my own version of the art from Quynh, so I’ve really not given up as much as you think I have.”

He twisted his hand so that he was holding yours instead of the other way around, and then he squeezed tightly. You knew that what he really wanted was to embrace you, but there was no time for that. Still, turning your face away from his, you smiled slightly at the acknowledgement.

“Thank you, sister. Knowing this, I feel terrible for saying this, but — but I have to. We can’t escape,” he said.

“What? Why not?” you said.

“They locked Bosco away in my chambers,” he said. “The last I heard, the Fire Lord is going to — he’s going to — it’s so unthinkable, I can barely bring myself to say it, but he’s going to eat him!”

“Uh, sorry?” you said. “Fire Lord Ozai wants to eat Bosco?”

“Yes, and I can’t let that happen! Unless you agree to help me rescue Bosco, I won’t go,” he said.

You almost argued with him, but then you thought about what he was saying, really thought about it, and you found yourself agreeing with him, though for a different reason. It wasn’t that you were attached to Bosco; rather, you saw Fire Lord Ozai’s intentions for what they truly were.

Bosco was a creature made in Quynh’s image, and even if the people of Ba Sing Se resented him for how much money Kuei had wasted on his upkeep, it was undeniable what the symbolism would be if Fire Lord Ozai consumed him. It would represent the Fire Nation’s destruction of Quynh and Shan and everything they stood for, and even though it put you and your brother in more danger, you could not allow that.

“Alright,” you said. “We’ll get him first.”

“Seriously?” he said.

“We were heading to my chambers, anyways. It’s not that much of a detour,” you said, ducking behind a pillar as a pair of Dai Li agents walked past you. Hidden away in the shadows as you were, you escaped their notice, but it had been a close enough call that your heart did not stop racing for many minutes.

“Why your chambers? The window is too high. Even with your Earthbending, it’s a suicidal method of escape,” he said.

“We’re not escaping through the window,” you said, taking advantage of the relatively clear coast to dart through the hallway and round the corner into the wing of the palace where the royal rooms were located. “There’s a door to Quynh’s Den that’s usually present in my dressing room. From there, we can reach the city and then gather allies to help us retake the palace before too much damage is done.”

“Quynh’s Den — so that’s how you kept escaping!” he said.

“Er, yes, I thought you’d have put that together by now,” you said as you reached Kuei’s rooms. There were soldiers milling about in front of the polished wood doors, but that was not the route you chose to take. Instead, you placed your palm on the wall and gritted your teeth, straining until the earth parted in an archway large enough for you to enter.

Bosco was restrained in the center of the room, a gag forced in his mouth so that he posed no threat to his nonexistent keepers. When he noticed you and Kuei, his ears pricked up, and he nudged Kuei happily in greeting as you untied the gag. Kuei held his fingers to his lips, and to his credit, Bosco followed the directive and remained silent all of the way until you reached your dressing room.

Thankfully, the door was there. Kuei was the one to open it, the glow of the crystals reflecting on his glasses eerily, his eyes shining as he stared down the passage.

“I’ve seen this before,” he breathed. “Maybe in a dream, or maybe not. But I know I have.”

“Good, then you’ll know the way,” you said. “Let’s get moving before we’re caught.”

“Quynh’s Den,” Kuei murmured, stepping into the passageway. “I can’t believe it’s real. I can’t believe I’m finally going to see it.”

You grinned at him. Only he could find some positive in these dire circumstances, and though some might claim it to be immature, you admired him for it, admired his unflinching optimism and unwavering faith and unquenchable curiosity.

For all of these years, you had been unfair to him. Quynh was right — he wasn’t a bad king. He was a good king; his flaw was that he was also a premature one, but you had confidence that with time, he would become the person that the kingdom needed.

For the final time, you gazed out at your undisturbed room, which was as peaceful as it always was. Just in that instant, it didn’t feel like there was a coup, like you and Kuei were fleeing for your lives. Just in that instant, it instead felt like you were going to visit Lee and Mushi in the tea shop for the night, like you always used to.

Right before you were about to follow after your brother, a thought crossed your mind. Pausing and then drawing back, you frowned, unable to shake the dread clawing up your throat.

“Kuei,” you said. “They came for you earlier, right?”

“Hm? Yes, they did,” he said, pausing in the middle of the passage, stopping Bosco as well. “Why? What’s wrong, Y/N?”

“The servants,” you said.

“Huh?” he said.

“The servants, brother, what did they do to the servants?” you said insistently. The ones who had kept your bath filled. The ones who swept your floors. The ones who made your bed. The ones who cooked your meals and maintained your gardens…what about them? Not all of them stayed at the palace overnight, but some did. Enough did.

Kuei scowled. “They’ve all been tied up in the kitchens. I don’t know why.”

You knew why. Maybe not exactly, but there were only a few possibilities: they would either torture the servants for information about the kingdom, they’d send them to the Fire Nation as prisoners, or they’d kill them en masse.

There wasn’t even a decision to make. What was a princess without a kingdom to rule, without subjects to love her? As well, it was your fault that they were in this danger to begin with.

“I have to go save them,” you said.

“Eh?” he said. “I must’ve misheard you.”

“You didn’t,” you said. “You go ahead, Kuei. You’re the king, so you have to make it out of here. I’ll rescue the servants, and then I’ll come too, okay? No, don’t argue. You can’t change my mind.”

He knew better than to even try when you had made such a declaration, so he only sighed.

“Where should we meet?” he said. “In Quynh’s Den?”

“No,” you said. “There’s a place in the Lower Ring known as the Firelight Fountain. If I do not catch up with you before you leave, then go there and wait for me.”

Kuei swallowed and then nodded at you. “Alright. I will see you there.”

“Yes,” you said. “I wish you luck, brother.”

“And I, you.”

With that, you turned your backs on one another, the door slamming shut as you tore off towards the kitchens and he continued towards Quynh’s Den.

The closer you got to the kitchens, the more guards you barely avoided, but somehow, you managed, and then you were in the darkened kitchens themselves, where the servants had been detained. There were so many of them that you knew you would have to take multiple trips or risk discovery, so picking a section at random, you began to untie the ropes around them.

“It’s me, Princess Y/N,” you repeated as you worked. “I’ve come to save you. Do exactly as I say, and you will live. Make a sound, and you will die.”

It was the most exhausting work of your life, equally as tedious as it was thrilling. The palace employed nearly a thousand servants, but thankfully there was nowhere near that number in the kitchens. Still, you must’ve freed close to a hundred people, doing away with the ropes and then sneaking them back to your room and instructing them to use one of Quynh’s doors to escape back to Ba Sing Se.

Finally, you were down to the final ten people. One of the boys was younger than the rest — he must’ve been new, the poor thing, and you were gentler with him than the others, wiping away his tears and hushing him kindly, taking your time to undo the knots which had rubbed away the skin of his wrists.

It was a mistake. What time did you have for kindness? You should’ve known better, but it was a pattern. You would always be kind. It would always get you in trouble.

“Princess Y/N! Look out!” the boy said as soon as you had removed the cloth stuffed in his mouth. It was the only warning you got; your eyes widened at it, and without even thinking, you dug in your pocket and smashed a statue of a dragon against the ground, bending the fragments as you turned, using half of them to dispel the licking flames that barely missed singing your clothes and sending the other half into the necks and eyes of the intruders.

They were Fire Nation, not Dai Li, and judging by their fancy uniforms, they were none other than the Soldiers of Agni, the most elite Firebenders outside of the royal family. You had no idea how Prince Zuko had managed to get them into Ba Sing Se, but of course, that was how your fortune had been going as of late, so you did not question it.

“Run!” you urged the others, clasping the boy’s hand with your own and taking off, motioning for everyone to follow you. “To my chambers! It won’t be long before more of them come for us.”

“Princess Y/N, you — you killed those men?” one of the older servants, a woman who you thought did the laundry, said.

“If I had not, then they would’ve killed me,” you said, breaking another one of the statues you had brought with you, using the knife-like edges to slice the throats of the Dai Li agents that you knew were stationed around the corner. There was no sense in hiding, not anymore; now, the goal was to make it to your room as fast as possible. “This is just what we have to do.”

“I didn’t realize you were capable of it, your royal highness,” one of the cooks said. “Or that you were concerned about us all enough to come back.”

“By what decree is my life worth more than anyone else’s?” you said. “My strength is yours, as yours is mine. I could never leave my people behind, not when I had a way to save them.”

The servants had never cared much for you before, had likely never even seen you before, but in the process of saving their lives, you believed that you might’ve earned something resembling their respect, too.

“I know that my brother and I were never popular as rulers,” you said as you reached your chambers, the door locking behind you as you made your way to your dressing room. “But I promise that we will change things. I will change things. I will put an end to the hardships that you all have endured for far too long.”

“Thank you, Princess Y/N,” a maid said. “I — I’m really grateful to you, your royal highness.”

“It is my duty,” you said. “Do not hesitate any longer; go through the door and follow the passageway until you reach the bear spirit, Quynh. She will help you escape to Ba Sing Se.”

“Quynh is real?” the small boy said, pressing into your side and peering up at you.

“She is,” you said. “I know, it sounds like I’m making things up, but it’s truly the case. Not only is she real, but she’s our only chance at escaping, so we must make haste.”

The remaining servants filed into the passageway, and you exhaled as all but the boy faded from sight. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. You had done it. You were safe.

There was a bang against the door. Another, and another. Fear shot through your veins as you realized that they were trying to break in. They had caught on to the fact that you were running to your room, though you had no idea what they thought they’d find when they smashed through.

“Come on,” you said, ushering the boy in and stepping in yourself, about to close the door behind you when there was a splintering sound, accompanied by the smell of smoke lacing the air. The Soldiers of Agni had arrived, and it was only a matter of seconds before they entered and found the door you had been using to escape.

Time passed differently in Quynh’s realm. Slower. You knew that. You had always known that, but until now you had not understood what it actually meant: you were doomed, and you had been from the start. They would find the door, and they would follow you, and they would catch you, and from there, they would kill you. That was how it was always meant to be. You had not saved anyone; you had only prolonged their misery.

It was your fault. It was your fault. It was your fault. With this mantra echoing in your head, you made a split-second decision. Crouching so that you were eye-level with the boy, you ruffled his hair.

“Listen, dear boy,” you said. “When you reach Quynh’s Den, I want you to tell Quynh to close this door, alright?”

“Why won’t you tell her?” he said, the smell of smoke intensifying even as you spoke.

“I’m not going,” you said. This was your atonement. This was the only thing you could do for your country, your people, your brother. This was the way you right the wrongs you had inadvertently wrought.

“What? What do you mean?” he said.

“There isn’t much time,” you said. “After you tell Quynh that, go to the Firelight Fountain in the Lower Ring and tell King Kuei to find the Avatar. Make sure he knows the message is from me…and that he knows I love him.”

“I won’t go unless I know you’re safe, princess,” the boy said obstinately, tugging on your sleeve. “Let’s go together and you can tell your brother these things yourself.”

You held the boy’s face in your hands and leaned forwards, kissing his forehead before straightening.

“Thank you for your concern, but when did I say that I was not escaping at all? I have another route,” you said.

“What other route?” he said.

Turning, you exited the passageway, looking over your shoulder at him and mustering as bright of a smile as you could, praying it was convincing enough.

“I’ll leave through the window,” you said. He was too young to know what that meant, and you did not give him the chance to think about it, slamming the door shut before he could respond and then reentering your chambers proper, right as the Soldiers of Agni broke through.

“Princess Y/N,” one of them said.

“Yes,” you said. “I would give you a proper welcome, a good one, but seeing as you have broken into my palace, I am not so inclined to. I swear I am a better host to those who are better guests.”

“Where is the Earth King? What about the rest of the servants?” another Soldier said.

“I don’t know,” you said, lying with an effortless ease, like you were swallowing honey and oil, using it to coat your every word with a smooth reliability. “Where indeed? You should’ve been keeping a closer eye on the gates.”

They moved in perfect formation, every step according to some unheard rhythm, their advancement a musical dance as they encroached upon you. You matched them like the partner to their sum total, backing away, closer and closer to your dresser of glass sculptures.

“We’re not supposed to harm you too terribly unless we’re absolutely forced to,” a Soldier said. “So how about you surrender and make things nice and easy?”

“Who would command you to not hurt your enemy?” you said.

“For some reason, Prince Zuko says it’s imperative that you remain uninjured,” he said. “Princess Azula told us to follow his orders while she chases the Avatar, so we’ll do as he commands for the time being.”

“Interesting,” you said, lip curling with distaste at the thought of Prince Zuko. “Unfortunately, I have no such holdbacks.”

The glass sculptures broke into thousands of little daggers, flying at the Soldiers of Agni faster than they could react. Thus began your final stand, the last thing you could do for the Earth Kingdom.

Glancing to the side, you saw that the door in your dressing room had not yet vanished. All you had to do was survive until it did. After that, it didn’t matter, but until that point, you could not die.

The Soldiers of Agni moved as one, creating a wall of fire to melt the glass, though a few made it past and gouged into them anyways. You were not deterred by the liquified state of your weapons; purposefully slowing your rapid breathing, you made a wave of burning, glowing glass surge towards them, scorching wherever it spattered, searing through armor and fabric and flesh alike.

Still, the door had not disappeared. The Soldiers of Agni sent coordinated bursts of fire at you, and this time you pulled the wave towards you. It rose up just in time, absorbing the heat of the fire meant for you, and then you condensed it before shooting it back towards them.

It was a push and pull, but they had the advantage. Better training. Better weapons. Their fire blazed at a higher temperature than any you had ever encountered, and eventually, your glass could not handle it, melting beyond the point of control, dripping through the floors and steaming into the air.

You were backed into a corner, but when you looked over at your dressing room, you could not help but smirk. The door was gone. Kuei was safe. Though you had been rendered defenseless, you had done your job. The Earth King would live.

Yet, defenseless though you were, there was a resolve brewing deep within you, too. Even if you could not win, you did not want the Soldiers of Agni to attain victory, either. You did not want them to succeed, to think that they had gotten one over you. If the only path forward was for you to die, then you wanted them to die, too.

“What will you do now, princess?” a Soldier said. You reached out with your bending and shattered the window, using the glass to cut away at their already-damaged flesh, holding your hands in front of you as they retaliated. Some used Firebending; others simply kicked the glass back, like they found amusement in your feeble struggles.

At Captain Chhay’s hands. At their hands. At Prince Zuko’s hands. No, none of these were ways that you were willing to suffer defeat. It would be on your own terms. Maybe you had run out of glass, but there was something else you had come to comprehend over the course of the night: the entire palace was a weapon, and you were the only one left who could wield it.

“The only thing I can do,” you said. “I am the Glass Princess, am I not? So, I will shatter, and you will be caught in the aftermath.”

You knew even as you slapped your palms against the walls that you would not survive this. If by some miracle the impact did not kill you immediately, then you would surely sustain such terrible injuries that you would not survive without treatment — treatment which would not be forthcoming, because no one knew where you were. No one knew what you were doing. In your final moments, now that everything had been said and done, you were alone.

Would your father and mother be proud of you? Would Quynh and Shan? You hoped Quynh would not grieve for very long. Even if she did not know how it had happened, you hoped she would see that it had been the only way, that you had been afraid, but notwithstanding, had done it bravely.

Because what was your life in comparison to Kuei’s? To the lives of your people? It was so little. It was the smallest price to pay. And, if you could take out all of the Soldiers of Agni in one fell swoop, then it was no loss at all.

You did not bully the stones of the palace. You did not need to; this palace, which had been built by your ancestor and upon Quynh’s Den, was your home, your birthright, and so the magic imbued in its construction jumped alive at the chance to help you. You only needed to think one thing for it to oblige, the room shaking and rumbling with a sound like mourning as the entire wing you were in collapsed — on you, yes, but also on the Soldiers of Agni, in an implosion that was not so different from embossing a window after all.

Palace, I command you to fall.

taglist (comment/send an ask/dm to be added): @rinisfruity14 @c4ttheart @blacky-rose @shizko @marsbars09 @happyplaidpersonfestival @catborglar @camilleverreault @nerdybouquetofkittens-blog @lovialy @heart4hees @stefnarda @ioonatv @vvicaddiction @yukihatesreoyo @yodayyy @ellzbellz18

#zuko x reader #zuko x y/n #zuko x you #zuko #avatar the last airbender #atla #reader insert #canon au #the glass princess #m1ckeyb3rry writes

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gunsandspaceships · 24 days

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Recruiting Peter in Civil War: a War Crime?

Today we are going to review this statement:

Tony “blackmailed a teenager to help fight his battles for him (Civil War) (which for the record, constitutes as a fucking war crime)”.

Part 1. Not a war crime: check my post about war crimes here. War crime is a crime committed during a war, by a party of the conflict.

MCU's “Civil War” was not a war. It was a conflict between a few people, that included one fight and a chase. The fight at the end of the movie between Tony and Steve with Bucky was not a part of this particular conflict, but a conflict on its own. From the government’s side, this situation was a law enforcement operation to capture a group of fugitives, where Tony’s side represented the law enforcement group under U.N. authority, not a nation’s armed forces.

The definition of Armed Forces: “the combined military, naval, and air forces of a nation”.

Source

In comics (Earth 616) it was indeed a war, but not in the MCU. That’s first.

Second, “Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, conscripting or enlisting children into armed forces or groups constitutes a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts (ICC Statute, Article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) and (e)(vii)).”

Tony did not enlist Peter in the armed forces or the Avengers.

And third, “The bans on recruitment of children below the age of 15 enshrined in Article 77 of Additional Protocol I, and in Article 4 of Additional Protocol II are also considered to prohibit accepting voluntary enlistment (P I, Art. 77 (2); P II, Art. 4(3)(c)).”

“2. The Parties to the conflict shall take all feasible measures in order that children who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities and, in particular, they shall refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of fifteen years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, the Parties to the conflict shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest.” (Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, Art. 77 (2)).

Here we got to an actual error from the SMFFH filmmakers’ side. Before SMFFH Peter’s age at the time of Civil War was planned to be 15 (see directors’ and screenwriters’ commentaries). In SMFFH Peter’s birthday was set to Aug 10, 2001, making him 14 years old at the time of Civil War. We cannot use random date placements made by SMFFH creators to define serious stuff, and also use another movie’s filmmakers’ decisions that were made after Civil War. So we must go with the fact that at the time of Civil War Peter was 15 years old, as was stated by the creators of CA:CW.

Conclusion: Peter was 15 years old, and if he were recruited to participate in a war, it would not be a war crime. But, he also was not enlisted in the armed forces. And Civil War was not an actual war, but a law enforcement operation under UN jurisdiction. So, yes, Tony is not a war criminal. Again. Very disappointing.

If you guys have any other ideas of how to accuse him of war crimes – go ahead. I’ll check them all.

#tony stark #iron man #mcu #marvel #the avengers #captain america civil war #peter parker #spiderman

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ddejavvu · 1 year

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Hi mei!

can i request some dbf!hotch except bc reader is an adult he doesn't actually realise the much younger person he's been dating is bestie's child. (i picture the dad working in fbi/law enforcement so maybe they run into one another at an fbi gala or whatnot)

today is multiverse monday! send me any au you can think of :)

Aaron had thought nothing of the fact that the chief of the city they're in had the same last name as you. He's known the guy for years, and when you'd signed onto his team he made a vague connection in his head, but nothing ever became of it. After all, they've met a dozen Morgans in the field, even more Garcias, and even Reid was more common than he'd thought at first.

Plus, he's kinda sorta been mentally referring to you with his own last name for a few weeks now, after you'd pointed out a wedding ring ad in a magazine to him. Said you were 'just looking', but he'd seen the glimmer in your eyes. Bottom line, it takes an effort not to introduce you as Y/N Hotchner to his old friend.

"Chief Y/L/N, this is Agent Y/N Y/L/N," He gestures to you with a soft chuckle, "Maybe you're related."

You give Aaron a funny look, a silly smile on your face, "Uh, yeah, maybe."

"Honey," The chief greets you, and Aaron's polite smile dims as the man reaches out to hug you.

"Dad," You gush beside the man's ear as he squeezes you tight, "It's good to see you again."

"You too," Your dad reluctantly lets you go, after all, there's still a serial killer on the loose, "Aaron, I thought you knew we were related?"

"I didn't," He admits sheepishly, "And you- uh, I didn't know you had a daughter. At least not in the workforce."

"My younger sister is ten," You explain, and Aaron marvels at the age gap, "He probably only talks about her cause she's his favorite."

"She's my favorite because she doesn't excuse me of picking favorites between my children," Your father elbows you with a good-natured grin, "And because she's less rebellious than you were."

"Rebellious," You scoff, "I was an angel."

"A fallen one," Your dad leans in to stage-whisper to Aaron, "The next time she gives you trouble, just call me and I'll tell you about what she was like when she was younger. Whatever she's done will pale in comparison, I guarantee it."

Aaron is only able to chuckle along to your dad's teasing, internally stunned and struggling to comprehend the situation. When your dad turns to head into his office, you pointedly fall back beside Aaron, turning to face him with an amused grin.

"You seriously didn't know?" You cross your arms over your chest, "It's in my file."

"I must have missed it," Aaron admits, brow creasing in confusion and sudden, epiphanic understanding, "Is that why you always turn my picture of the chief and I to face the wall before we have sex?"

"Yes," You laugh, "Why did you think?"

"I thought you didn't like my shirt or something," Aaron muses, "You know I donated that shirt for you!"

You let out a snort, one that you seem embarrassed by if the way you cover your mouth and let your eyes flutter shut is any indication. You take a moment to breathe, "The shirt was fine. Not the best, but not as unsexy as my dad."

"Not the best," Aaron grumbles, turning to busy himself with the whiteboard the precinct has set up, "I loved that shirt."

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yellow-yarrow · 6 months

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Liz is such an underappreciated character, I'm starting a collection about the things we know about her since the wiki doesn't have much info.

She went to law school for 4 years, (so she is in her early 20s) Evrart paid for it. I find it a little contradictory that he calls her middle class, since she also grew up in Martinaise & needed financial help for school, but maybe she is a little bit wealthier than the avarage person in Martinaise. She's a legal counsellor for the Dockworkers' Union and she's a socialist.

Evrart Claire - "Oh, Liz is a bright one!" He grins broadly. "I paid for that law degree myself, thinking it'll probably turn her all fancy, but hell, Harry -- she came back a firebrand socialist! Sometimes she scares *me* with her zeal."

Evrart Claire -"She thinks of herself as a guerrilla fighter. These middle-class kids and the books they read are crazy, Harry. I think she would rather be an *insurgent* than a lawyer. I hope it's a phase."

Easy Leo - "Oh, Lizzy? She is a real sharp tool. Mr. Evrart put her through some fancy school and everything, east of the river. Four years she was gone and when she came back she was all fancy and *law-yerly*." Easy Leo - "But she's a real nice girl, grew up in this here neighbourhood, knows everybody and gets along with everyone, real pillar of the community one day, I'm sure."

You - "Thank you comrade. Property is theft." Elizabeth - "Vulgar idiot," she shakes her head. Conceptualization - Your understanding of the worker's struggle is about one century old, she's thinking.

Elizabeth - "Listen, you Moralintern lackeys. You're a mob, enforcing the unlawful privatization of Revachol. Twenty fat men in the Occident are stealing it all -- and you're their body guards."

She is very pretty, "could be a model" but doesn't think highly of models.

Glen - "You *could* be, Liz. You could be anything. You could even be a model." Elizabeth - "*Even* a mod..." Her face stiffens. "Glen, I went to *law school*. I am an attorney." Electrochemistry - He's right, with a face like that she could be on the cover of La Débutante International. Glen - "So fucking what? Lots of models are actually really smart people, fuckwad!" Elizabeth - "No, Glen -- they aren't." Her tone is cold and uninvolved.

Rhetoric - When she's angry, she emphasizes the *s*. It gives her voice a strangely hypnotic quality. Her lips barely move as she speaks. Inland Empire - Frankly it's a bit terrifying.

Likes and dislikes:

Elizabeth - "Anodic dance music, you wouldn't get it." Elizabeth - "No." It doesn't look like she's into popular adventure-fantasy.

You - "Do you listen to disco?" The Gardener - "Uh... I'm gonna say no." "Can't wait to change out of these rags."

She is good at lying, to some degree:

Drama - She feels interrogated now. It's hard to say if she's lying. Composure - She hides it well, but behind the sweat and dirt there is something... else. In her rigid posture. Drama - You get a strange feeling, looking at that smile. It spoils the moment. It is disingenuous. You - What's going on here? Drama - Surely it was nothing, sire. Just paranoia.

Liz obviously doesn't like Harry, she didn't want to cover for Klaasje. She is annoyed with the Hardie boys.

Elizabeth: "Babysitting imbeciles... what the heck, Liz?" Elizabeth - "Why are you so fucking FAT, Angus?!" Lizzie snaps at him. "Now it's all pointless, because of *you*. You wasted my time. I told you, Titus --" she turns to him. "I told you to just give her up."

Her thoughts on Cuno:

The Gardener - "The kid did this, right? The red-haired rat? Can't say a sentence without *f****t* or *kipt*... He's always giving me trouble." You - "I was talking to him, yes." The Gardener - "Maybe you shouldn't be. I mean... you do your job, but that kid is beyond help.

Easy Leo says she is very nice and gets on well with everyone. I think we have to take into consideration that when we meet her 1. we play as a cop 2. she is in very high stress situations. She has a huge responsibility by being the union's lawyer. So I can imagine that she is usually a bit more like what she acted like as "the gardener", and doesn't always snap at people.

That's all I found so far, if anyone wants to add to this, feel free to do so

#long post #elizabeth beaufort #disco elysium #someone please tell me what part of revachol is 'east of the river' cause im too dumb to remember geography #i started this post like 2 days ago it got quite long lol #edit: i've been told east of the river is the wealthiest part of the city so that makes sense

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the-s1lly-corner · 2 months

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HEEEEEEEELLLLLLLOOOOOOO may we get platonic older brother found family jeff the killer and kid!reader plspls I loved the post where he's cutting the readers hair and I desperately need more big bro jeff content

Platonic Jeff x kid!reader

Nono because I need to write more for jeff, but I'm kind of picky with what I write for him given my own discomforts GUH

LOVE when jeff is brotherly

You guys get bonus ben hcs too since hes always with jeff in my silly au

So you know that scene from adventure time where simon breaks a window and tells marceline that it's wrong? That's basically the dynamic, except jeff rarely actually enforces right vs wrong...

I dont think he would make you take part in his killings, not even as a witness. Hell, in my au/Hc hes toned down by the time it all takes place. Still an ass though...you both kind of live running from the law, so you're never in a place for long and you dont carry much with you guys

"Kid turn around for a second" proceeded by the sound of him breaking a car window open and then hot wiring said car...he keeps checking in on you as you sleep in the back seat

He cuts your hair and TRIES to patch up your clothes when they get ruined. He doesn't become particularly skilled at sewing but he does get decent enough to make your clothing last longer until you guys can find a replacement

He has already stolen from stores, nothing is going to stop him from stealing something for you if you want or need something

When you get older he teaches you how to defend yourself in the case of something happening, though sometimes when hes on a clearer headspace he sometimes thinks about leaving you at a police station so you can have a better life.. at least a shot of having a normal one.. that kind of becomes its own internal batter in him

Going by my hc/au once more, ben is here with you guys albeit stuck on a DS! Good news is you can play games and have a friend to keep you company when jeff is out! You and ben become friends and share a dynamic similar to the one bed and jeff had, before jeff grew up.. he shares some inside jokes with you and kind of makes fun of jeff behind his back

#creepypasta x y/n #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta x you #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta imagine #jeff the killer imagine #jeff the killer headcanons #jeff the killer headcanon #jeff the killer x reader #jeff the killer x you

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y-rhywbeth2 · 2 months

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Lore: Baldur's Gate #1

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

The City | Demographics | Administration & Government | ??? - WIP

Might as well start compiling lore on the namesake of the game...

Featuring the city aesthetic (the depiction of it in-game wasn't nearly grey, damp or claustrophobic enough) and a mostly complete overview of the city and its major areas: the Lower City, Upper City, Outer City, Undercellar and Undercity.

Cultural titbits: like why you can't have animals bigger than peacocks; that you shouldn't live here if you have claustrophobia; how the Patriars clearly have it out for people with hay fever; the constant mould problem; where to go to get a glowing tattoo, a fake tan and the magical equivalent of a plastic surgeon; and why, in fairness to the Banites, the city requires very little effort to turn into a nightmarish police state under the control of an evil deity.

And if your Dark Urge is a sewer gremlin then that's a life choice they're making, not a Bhaalist thing: the Undercity isn't in the sewers.

The city state of Baldur's Gate is one of Faerûn's more important ports, situated geographically between the massive trade centres of Athkatla and Waterdeep. It began its life as a fusion of the early fishing hamlet of Loklee (formed around 0 DR) and the pirate and smuggler hub that formed nearby. It was a popular port with a shipyard and visitor's wharves by 204 DR. The natural harbour the man-made harbour is built on is one of the only places in hundreds of miles that's safe for ships to dock at.

Due to the lack of nearby settlements to form competition, the trade hub attained city status and import early in its existence. It briefly fell under the early kingdom of Shavinar, though this was mostly a technicality and the settlement continued to govern itself and continued to do so when the kingdom fell in 277 DR.

The area was first officially recognised in the history books as the city of of Baldur's Gate in 446 DR.

The primary spoken language of the Gate is Chondathan, however during the Spellplague the city attracted enough refugees to become one of Faerûn's most populated cities, and it's a diverse enough location that many people are at least bilingual (not counting Common): many speak Chondathan, their native/ancestral language and a third.

As a major port the city has always been something of a melting pot and encouraged a policy of tolerance - you don't want to drive away merchants and trade, after all. Likewise, in the interests of encouraging trade, the city has enforced a stance of political neutrality and refuses to be drawn into international problems.

Officially, the city prides itself on being welcoming to all ways of life, to the point where anyone and anything goes as long as they obey the laws and don't rock the boat; even the open worship of the majority evil gods is completely unremarkable - what if you want to trade with a place where those gods are a major religion, after all? While Umberlee is worshipped everywhere near the sea (under threat of tidal waves and drowning in retribution for not worshipping her), Baldur's Gate is one of the few places she has an actual temple.

A shrine to any god - regardless of what their faith does or preaches - can be established in any of the temple districts for public worship, and the law will pay it no mind.

This reputation for tolerance and neutrality means it tends to be one of the first choices for refugees and immigrants looking for a new start. The city is extremely crowded, with many people packed into tight spaces and narrow streets, and its population numbers surpassed the metropolis of Waterdeep decades ago; standing at 42,103 people in the 14th century, it has likely more than doubled since. Visitors often find it incredibly - possibly intolerably - loud and busy, while locals consider them to be backwater farmers who don't know what civilisation looks like.

While the city doesn't discriminate legally against any groups, its reputation for tolerance is somewhat overexaggerated. Peoples who are viewed as monstrous by the Realms at large, such as orcs and other goblinoids, or drow, can expect to feel unwelcome as with everywhere else. The recent wave of unwanted human refugees from Calimshan have a strained relationship with the established Baldurians, who view them as foreign and wish they'd just assimilate and start speaking Chondathan already. The city is a human settlement by culture and demographics, retaining its historical human majority, and while the demihuman minorities are part of mundane everyday life, there have been incidents such as in the early 14th century, which saw the rise of The Sure Helm: a human supremacy group who had an issue with the non-humans in their society and were known to carry out hate crimes on the likes of half-elves and half-orcs if they thought they could get away with it.

On a slightly saner note: you have the freedom of religion to worship a god who demands slaves and blood sacrifice, but it's a bad idea to advertise that... Or get caught slaving and murdering, unless you're a very high ranking priest.

Local bards tend to refer to the city as the Cresent moon in their lyrics and poems, after the shape of the city layout. The musical traditions of the Gate focus on "brassy-voiced tenors" and "delightfully smoky altos".

Baldurians frown on drunk, debauched and disorderly behaviour in public: there's no space for this nonsense and you're keeping everybody on the street awake.

The gate has an array of cosmetic services available in the markets of the Wide, where - as well as mundane tattooists and piercers - one can hire wizards in the market to perform cosmetic alterations with transmutation magic: glowing tattoos and other strange illusions, tans, magically affixing gems and jewellery like pieces to your body, changing hair colour, texture and style, changing your eye colour, altering your height or your weight or your sexual dimorphism, etc etc.

It's considered bad luck to harm a cat. Many of the animals moved into the area by hitching a ride on sea traffic, and as they're extremely useful for keeping vermin down both on land and at sea, Baldurians are fond of them.

If you need help carrying your shopping or finding somewhere in the city, most street corners have youths known as "lamp boys" and "lamp lasses" you can hire - so called because of the lanterns they carry at night. With the founding of the newspaper you can also find them hawking the daily papers.

The trade the city brings is the lifeline of the Sword Coast (South), and the only place one can buy foreign and luxury goods in the entire region. That said, these goods come at a significant mark up compared to the prices you'd find in Waterdeep or anywhere in Amn.

The majority of silver trade bars (bars of metal used in place of coins, for ease of transport) are made in the Gate, and the city sets the standards for this form of currency.

The city has always been heavily policed, and is known for being quiet and one of the safest cities in Western Faerûn; Baldurians don't expect much if any major disruption to the city's day-to-day life.

The city has its own City Watch - member of the watch being readily identified by their black helms, bearing a red stripe down one side - however the Flaming Fist Mercenary Company is the first thing that comes to mind when you mention law enforcement; you can barely go more than an hour without seeing at least one uniformed officer.

The City Watch used to be the city's police force, however by the end of the 15th century the Fist has taken on much of their role, and the Watch now functions purely as the private law keepers of the Upper City. They are permitted to live within the Upper City, and positions in the watch are now mostly hereditary.

Even when the Watch was the official city police the Fist boasted an army a thousand strong. By the start of the 15th century the Fist had taken over city patrols in a semi-official capacity. The two groups also overlap, and many of the Watch are also secretly members of the Fist. One in ten people in the gate - Watch or otherwise - are spies and informants for the mercenary company.

They may not be fully reliable as a police force however, as they are known to chose not to deal with some problems, declaring it a problem for the watch to deal with. Notably they do not police the Outer City and refuse to touch anything involving the Undercellar.

The Flaming Fist also has outposts in other realms, where it guards the foreign trade interests of the city, such as Fort Beluarian (a hamlet of 313 people) in the jungles of Chult on the Southern end of Faerûn. Being mercenaries, they are available for hire for any purpose that isn't considered flat out evil.

Of course the heavy policing and massive police presence, to anybody who cares to look closer at the city's outward appearance of security, is a giant tip-off that the city has a thriving underworld. The Thieves Guild is an ever-present force, and the religious tolerance means that there are a lot of other organised crime syndicates (ie the priests), murderers and extortion rackets running around. Such organisations keep close diplomatic ties to the Grand Dukes and the commander of the Flaming Fist.

The weather conditions are typically rain, sleet or fog depending on season and time of day, and the streets and buildings are almost constantly wet either from the weather or the sea. The architecture is almost entirely stone, as it's less likely to rot. The streets are often slippery, and straw or gravel from the river is sometimes thrown over the cobbles for grip. The citizens take advantage of the moisture and damp to use their cellars to cultivate edible fungi. Damp, mould and mildew are a common menace, but it did lead a wizard named Halbazzer Drin to make his fortune by inventing spells that banishes mildew (12gp per casting) and dry out an area without damaging anything (10gp), so services exist if you need to hire them. The spell is not known outside of the city; Drin refused to sell knowledge of the spell to anyone for any price or offer. Due to the damp, the streets have no banners or other hanging fabrics around.

Buildings tend to be tall and narrow, with shuttered slit windows placed high up, which will be firmly shut at night and all day in winter, to keep out the gales and invading gulls looking for places to nest. The extremely narrow streets of the Lower City are full of window planters and hanging baskets of flowers, providing the sole spot of colour amongst the grey. As the city streets are so steep and narrow, the city has a ban on allowing animals larger than a dog into the city (it's too difficult for them to navigate and likely to cause traffic issues).

Boxed in by its thick, heavily fortified city walls and with no space to expand the city has largely built upwards, and the streets are filled with stone buttresses and arches supporting the upper floors.

Due to its stony architecture and frequent overcast, the entire city is often referred to as the Grey Harbour by residents. (This is also the name of the actual city harbour)

The city is built into the chalk white cliffs around the harbour, growing in elevation until the settlement stops at the outermost walls.

By the 15th century, the city was firmly divided into the Lower and Upper Cities, the latter of which is built into the highest elevation, cut off by a wall. In the population boom that followed the mass immigration of Spellplague refugees, many people were forced to make space for themselves outside of the walls, building the Outer City. Beneath the city lies the Undercellar

Descending from the Undercellar is a labyrinth of tunnels leading down into caverns buried beneath Baldur's Gate; housing the ruins of a forgotten era, where the Temple of Bhaal stands over the ruins, surrounded by the restless spirits and walking corpses of undead residents ancient and brand new.

The Lower City houses most of the city, crafts and trade.

With the narrow spaces, cliffs, tall buildings and arches, the city can get rather dark at night. What public lighting is available is maintained by the citizens themselves. The wealthier parts of the Lower City, like Bloomridge, use oil and wick copper bowls, while poorer areas make do with candles in tin lanterns, usually such things are mounted on the walls and ceilings of the darkest corners; but when you want to navigate at night you'll usually be hiring lamp lads.

The Grey Harbour is one of Toril's most famous and best ports, frequented by legitimate merchant captains and pirates alike; many of the families living on the docks are the families of sailors. The area is very industrialised, sporting the shipyard, multiple cranes and railway tracks used to facilitate the moving of goods. The most notable structures are the Harbourmaster's Office, a tiny building with barred windows that deals with all trades and taxes - and the Water Queen's House at the end of the pier, which everybody with a brain makes offerings to and nobody looks too closely at whatever the Umberlant priests get up to in there, because the vast majority of people like breathing.

The Gate has little in the way of large fanciful festivals, but specific streets in the Lower City are prone to a centuries old tradition of "cobble parties", where the people living on a street pull up some chairs, benches and barrels and gather outside to share a mild drink, tell stories and chat. An ongoing cobble party can be recognised by the bright rose-red torches that are hung up along the street walls - these torches are made at Felogyr's Fireworks and can be bought almost anywhere in the city.

Bloomridge is as close the Upper City as you can get without actually gaining access, and houses the Gate's middle class. It was initially built in elevated platforms cimbing up the Upper City's walls using magic and Gondian engineering. It's various attractions - including fanciful architecture, florists, artisanal boutiques, fancy open-air kaeth houses (cafes) and dining houses (restaurants; also known as "skaethars" or "feasthalls"), and elaborate hanging gardens and floral arcades - made it attractive to those with wealth but no pedigree.

The district expanded as those who could afford to do so began purchasing and razing the original, less fancy buildings in the vicinity and building estates on the ground where they used to stand. Those who can't quite afford that instead opt to live in high class apartment buildings and flats over the local businesses. Buildings here often have rooftop gardens and balconies with pleasant vistas.

The Upper City is located in the oldest quarter of the city, the Lower City being built outside of the walls and stretching down to the harbour and then having the lower city walls constructed around it. The only gate connecting the two halves is the eponymous Baldur's Gate, the first of the many city gates constructed. It's also heavily guarded and the only gate by which outsiders may access the Upper City; there are numerous smaller gates, but they are exclusively used by patriars and those bearing family livery or bearing a letter of employment signed by a patriar. This district houses the Gate's oldest and most powerful families: anyone who isn't a patriar is either a servant or a watchman, who will most likely be a member of a family that has served a patriar family/the Upper City for generations. The exceptions tend to be a handful of the most successful and affluent business owners whose businesses have become popular enough with the nobility to be welcomed in. Every business and city service in this district exists to serve the upper class exclusively.

It's the most open and colourful part of the city; the shutters and doors are painted in fresh, vibrant paints. The streets are broad and well lit with ornate enchanted lamps; the terrain is mostly flat, unlike the streets of the Lower City, which can often resemble giant staircases.

Businesses that would cause unpleasant smells are banned from the area, and the Upper City maintains many gardens, windowsill planters and trellises where flowers bloom and fill the air with pleasant scents (unless you have hay fever, anyway). Wandering minstrels provide ambient music as they wander the streets - usually a singer playing a lute or harp accompanied by a flutist and perhaps a drummer who may provide a chorus.

They've also got drains, so the streets are less inclined to flood or turn to mud the way the rest of the city is.

There are no inns or alehouses here: a noble who wishes to drink will either host a party, attend a private club, or go slumming in the Lower City.

The Upper City houses the High Hall, also known as the ducal palace; the administrative building that provides a place for feasts, court hearings and government meetings. The meeting rooms are and have always been open for public use, however there is a rule that states you cannot rent a meeting room there twice within 48 hours (to stop people from monopolising the rooms). The High Hall used to be a more grim, military building but has since been renovated to appear more bright and friendly as a PR stunt following a giant riot over taxes.

The other two of the city's temples are located in the Upper City, the Lady's Hall - a Temple of Tymora - and the High House of Wonders, the temple of Gond (who is near enough the city's patron god). The building serves various purposes: a temple, workshops, factories and laboratories. When something deemed ready for the eye is released it can usually be viewed in the Hall of Wonders: a science museum across the street to the temple.

It's also where the Gate's largest marker - the Wide - is situated. It's the only large open space in the city, and the only open air market. Outside of festivals, performances and music is banned in the area. The Wide is usually packed with people forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, and those who are hired to perform deliveries in the Wide are always tall and large, capable of seeing over the heads of the throngs and pushing their way through. Goods are carried atop tall poles that are strapped to the deliverymen's chests or backs. Prices are lowest in the Wide compared to anywhere else, and any transactions that cannot be performed within a licensed store must take place here by law.

Permits to rent space in the Wide for the day are limited, and they usually go to whoever has the money to bribe the bailiff, watchmen and other officials who have sway in over the market's administration - which is usually the merchants of the Upper City.

As well as the usual fare of goods, the Wide offers a large range of cosmetic services including the mundane body modifications and stylists that one would find on Earth, and more esoteric concepts that can only be accomplished with magic; such services and the artisans who provide them are seasonal and ever changing. The Wide is the most colourful spot in the city, and the only place that's the exception to the lack of banners and other hanging fabrics. Historically the Wide was open all day and night, but in recent times the watch has been closing the area at dusk - nobody except for the patriars may have use of the Upper City after dark.

The Wide is only closed if the area must be used for something else, such as public Highharvestide festivals... or because a patriar decided to close it off for private use, such as a ball or wedding.

Just outside of the market area is the rest of the Upper City's commercial area; stores, insurance offices, trade guildhalls, Ramazith's tower and the public entrance to the Undercellar - a flight of stone stairs leading down to a pair of heavy oak doors at the southern edge of the market. The doors are shut, but the Undercellar never closes and if you knock somebody will open them and usher you inside.

The Undercellar is a maze of underground passages lying beneath the city - mostly vaulted stone chambers created from the interconnected and abandoned cellars of the old Upper City, with hidden exits all over the city. Those who know where these exits are tend to guard them jealously, but may be willing to allow the Thieves' Guild access for coin or service. The Guild itself controls a fair few of these exits, and has been working on expanding the network.

It's also the playground for the criminal underworld of the Gate. The Undercellar's public image is that of a rather unprincipled festhall (a specific form of adult entertainment venue in the Realms that serves as a fusion of casino, bar, lounge, spa, brothel, playground, BDSM scene, LARPing club and so forth), which in a way, it is. Due to its dangerous reputation, it's incredibly popular, especially with those who are trying to look edgy and dangerous (particularly teenagers).

If one is openly carrying weapons, you can expect the armed guards stationed in the room to start following you closely; otherwise they'll leave you be. The guards are unlikely to care much about any disturbances, so long as they don't start disrupting everybody's business. Customers are not to venture further into the Undercellar without permission and an escort.

And behind that edgy, but mostly harmless veneer visitors play at and never see past is the real Undercellar, which is every bit as dark as its rumoured to be.

The Guild has its offices down here, and other rooms are used for varying purposes by other criminals. Want to put a hit on somebody, watch somebody get murdered in a Bhaalist red room, smuggle people or whatever crimes against humanity you feel like seeking out, this'd be the place to do it.

The Undercellar is policed by nobody except the criminals who do their work down there; whatever might take place down there, neither the Watch nor the Fists have any desire to know about them if you try and bring them to light. Want to avoid bad things? Don't get involved with the Undercellar.

The sprawling, pitch-black maze - if one knows how to navigate it - is a good way to get around the Upper City without detection. Somewhere down there is a passage that goes deeper, leading further into the earth and into the Undercity.

The Undercity is, clue in the name, the dead remains of a city buried beneath the living Baldur's Gate (specifically the original city that became the Upper City). At its heart is the Temple of Bhaal, and the city is inhabited by Bhaalists, alive and dead; the original, now undead, inhabitants of the undercity and any victims of the temple that have joined them.

The Outer City, Cliffgate and Blackgate are not technically parts of the city, being constructed outside of them.

The soil surrounding the city is little use for agriculture, but it is sufficient for grazing, so most farmers are the likes of shepherds and cattle farmers. As livestock and large animals are not permitted inside the city, cattle markets, stables and such businesses will be found there. Many of the less pleasant businesses, such as butchers and tanners, have relocated here to spare the rest of the city the smell and mess.

Much of the structures are semi-permanent in nature, and the areas are not subject to official oversight or in possession of any particular infrastructure. They aren't policed by the Fist or the watch, the area is near enough lawless, and crime is frequent. "Security" tends to be overseen by the Guild, and while the government doesn't tax outside the walls, residents still have to pay their dues to the local thieves and thugs.

The Outer City is as crowded as the Lower City, but less sanitary or orderly: these places are dirty, loud, smell a lot and tend to be quite dangerous. Many of the residents are farmers, criminals and foreigners and immigrants of varying generation who can't afford or find a place in the city proper.

The Blackgate is the historical slum area, and grew around the inland-facing Black Gate to the North West, growing around the Trade Way connecting The Gate to Waterdeep.

The Tumbledown district, located in Cliffgate outside the city gate of the same name, is the middle child of the expansions, leading down the cliffs. The land was owned by the Szarr family generations ago, before they were all (supposedly) slaughtered by a rival family in the night. Tumbledown is an extremely foggy area, full of graveyards and tombs, and rumours abound that the ghosts of the dead Szarrs haunt the streets there and steal people away. People do disappear there, but most people are sceptical that it's due to ghosts.

The Outer City is a newer, larger slum that grew around the Basilisk Gate and spread along the Coast Way - the road between the Gate and Athkatla - as the city population exploded at the end of the 14th century.

Immigrant communities have taken the opportunity to build their own settlements in the Outer City, styled in their own architectural styles, such as Little Calimshan; a tenement on Wyrm's Crossing is exclusively occupied by halflings; Whitkeep houses a gnomish community who does most of the city's tinsmithing; half-orcs lodge in Stoneyes; a shield dwarven community is located in Shieldgate.

These communities are considered outsiders by most Baldurians, and generally there's no love lost between those inside the walls and outside.

#...the Durge player in me is looking at all the various ways one could go undercover as an assassin I must admit #Karlach is actually a good example of how surnames work in the Realms: she was born/raised in Cliffgate so it's her “surname”#long post

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pommunist · 17 days

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I’m sorry but the fact your trying to say Quackity is a CEO of a corporate company is sooo fucked. QSMP is funded by only one man. QSMP’s team was made by one man. The project was put together by one man. QSMP does even fit the qualifications to a corporate company and it is Quackity’s very first project. Is there problems yes I’m not denying that but Quackity has made it clear he is trying and you seriously cannot be comparing him to fucking Amazon. Like the two arnt remotely similar. I think people hold QSMP to a higher standard because it’s so public but the difference between Amazon and Quackity is that Amazon has been running their company with a huge team of multiple people to make decisions for 30 years Quackity is a man who put together a team but is still largely making the decisions and has been doing it for a year. The man has a lot to learn I admit that but you can’t expect the same amount of perfection you get from a corporate company. Before you demonize Quackity we should let him try to actually learn get better and improve.

hey anon ! I don’t remember having referred to Q as the ceo of a corporate company but if I did and it’s inaccurate I’m sorry ! I’ll admit that I’m not super familiar with business-related english terms and what each of them specifically encapsulates, maybe owner of the company/face of the brand is more accurate ?

I agree that Qstudios isn’t Amazon however I don’t think QSMP is being held to an higher standard because it’s public. In fact I think that everyone, be it a huge corporation, a small business or someone on the Internet launching a project, from the point they start hiring people and having workers under their care, should be held to the standard of treating these workers fairly. And it’s not just my personal opinion, it’s also the legal standard in many countries.

A lot of businesses start with just one or a few people, and when it grows, it’s up to them to make sure everything they’re doing is in accordance with the law and that their workers aren’t being mistreated in the workplace/work environment. Obviously this is a lot of work in itself, especially in a international project because with each new country you hire someone from you basically double the number of norms to abide to, and would be overwhelming for just one person. That’s when it also becomes your responsibility to hire or at least contact lawyers, HR people, to help you navigate through this.

To me, this isn’t expecting perfection, it’s expecting the bare minimum.

Also please don’t assume I’m trying to demonise Quackity, I don’t have any intention to paint him as this big evil guy who woke up every morning thinking "hehe another good day of exploiting young people and make money off of them" as that is not how I view him and I hope my posts so far have not conveyed that idea.

My own take is that he had a great idea for a project but severely underestimated the amount of work and research that would actually have to be done to achieve it, didn’t take the necessary steps to help avoid this whole mess, wasn’t mindful enough of people working for him and on top of that, hired some bad people who enforced their toxic idea of what management should be.

#qadmins situation #quack crit

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botanyshitposts · 1 year

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just wanted to say that some months ago i went on a bit of a "mental illness tangent" and wrote down every single native species to my county, including its light and water needs. may or may not have been spurred on by some topic you mentioned...

one side effect i learned with that is that apparently i live in like. the ONE area of the us that doesn't really use fire much as a part of it's ecosystem, once you're inland beyond the pine barrens on the coast, obvs. kinda funny idk. like you have a whole continent that has large fire use in varying ways, and then in little old new england in the old mountains where apparently fire has not been present in 8000 years from research from sediments.

hi! just want you to know that this is both academic and political direct action in my mind and i think every community should have at least one person who knows what local Guys are supposed to be there and what they need.

next step would be to go see which ones you can actually find in remnant forests and stuff. if any dudes are missing it's an active cause for concern and you can start the process of finding Whoever In Local Government Is In Charge Of That, and you would be surprised to know that usually there is at least one person who's like, kind of supposed to be in charge of it but nobody pays attention to plants so it slipped under the radar, etc. or if you want to do more research first or want to know where to look you can go try to see when it was last actually spotted, because from my experience a lot of old sources from like, 1802 just get grandfathered in to modern records and you realize nobody's actually checked to see if these things are still there lately.

to check your own work against, plants.usda.gov has an online database that in theory is an up-to-date record of all plants in every state in the country-- notice that i say every state, because not all states specify sightings or populations by county, which is unhelpful for actually going out and seeing them near you. on a state-by-state basis, some states have their own databases which narrow it down to county, and then from there you can see which sources they cite and check to see how old they are. note that the usda cites the flora of north america as their primary source for the species ive personally come across, which is good because the flora of north america is crowd-funded, organized, written, and published by actual academics in the botanical community who go searching for these things and they have names and email addresses you can use to contact them, plus the completed families are free to access online on their website. because of the amount of people retiring with no replacement, however, it's still good to follow up.

im...nebulous on my understanding of who is supposed to be checking up on these guys in the government. either the USDA or the fish and wildlife service is the arm that's supposed to be regulating plants listed as endangered in your area, or at least enforcing poaching laws, and if it's something high profile they probably do, but then you look at the endangered species list in your state and see a guy you know hasn't been seen in quite some time and you have to wonder where they're getting their data, if they're doing their own internal surveys, if you can even access that kind of information because of the need to be careful around disclosing the locations of endangered plants, if this local Guy has actually genuinely slipped through the cracks of bureaucracy and has lost whatever fractionally small area of land it used to have in your county/surrounding county/state, if anybody is even paying attention, etc. it seems like your best bet comes down to contacting the one other person whos super into them

and then you go on inaturalist to see if anyone else has seen it and nobody has and anyway thats how you go insane

#asks

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saintsenara · 1 month

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waitt i need to know why you hc ludo bagman as a genuine death eater sympathiser omg. that sounds fascinating

thank you very much for the ask, pal!

that bagman was really a death eater sympathiser is something i've been committed to believing since i first read goblet of fire, but it's something i've been pondering particularly recently as part of writing subluxation, which is a big look at the set-up and function of the wizarding state during voldemort's takeover in 1997-1998 from the perspective of percy weasley.

which means - of course - that it requires a bit of grappling with percy's main man - and bagman's frenemy - barty crouch sr.

the way the canon narrative - not only harry's perspective but also characters harry implicitly trusts, like sirius and dumbledore - wants us to react to crouch sr. is something that really interests me. because i think it's reasonable to say that - while the series doesn't regard him as a villain villain, per se [as it does for characters such as umbridge] - it doesn't see him as someone we are supposed to regard in a particularly positive light either, even after the reveal that barty crouch jr. was a death eater and his father was justified in sending him to azkaban [even if he didn't keep him there...]

crouch - like cornelius fudge, rufus scrimgeour, and percy himself - is a victim of the narrative's general consensus that ministry workers who are not under the impression that the ministry cannot function admirably or efficiently without input from dumbledore are people we should have no real respect for. he is shown, in his canon appearances, to be something of a jobsworth - officious and dull and uncreative in his thinking, which serves both as a personification of what the series thinks about the civil service and as a narrative device to make the reveal that he broke his son out of prison and kept him, essentially, drugged at home all the more shocking.

but crouch is also interesting in another sense - in that he is not a villain, but that he does not fit into the way the series categorises the behaviour of its heroes surrounding mercy.

we are told in goblet of fire that crouch - as head of the department of magical law enforcement in the 1970s - was responsible for the escalating harshness of the government's response to voldemort. policies such as the instructions for aurors to shoot to kill if they encountered suspected death eaters and the use of internment without trial of those accused of collusion with voldemort [both of which, as i am always banging on about, are references to the actual behaviour of the british state in northern ireland during the same time period] emanate directly from him.

and this ties into a theme which is prominent in the run of books between prisoner of azkaban and half-blood prince: that the world is not split into good people and death eaters. the purpose of these central books in the series is to show that - once harry's worldview widens from the hogwarts-exclusive focus it has in the first two, more childlike, books - the rot in the wizarding world goes far beyond voldemort. the wizarding state is shown - time and time again - to be cruel, corrupt, prejudiced, and stagnant, and the ministry's most loyal bureaucrats and their unwillingness towards mercy are largely blamed for this situation.

because of course - as i have complained about before - the morality of the harry potter series is individualist. good and evil are located by the text within the individual, which means that states and their institutions are automatically less interesting to it than singular heroes and villains in an epic baddies-versus-goodies showdown.

but it's also true that - as a protagonist - harry's morality is extremely self-serving. by which i mean that he has a tendency to reach black-and-white judgements on people he encounters - they're good if they're nice to him, they're bad if they're cruel to him - and to never deviate from them.

and - indeed - to never have to deviate from them. it's worth saying that harry's conversion rate on being right about people is really high - his immediate dislike of characters such as draco malfoy, lockhart, and umbridge is entirely justified; his immediate trust of characters such as sirius is the same. his only misjudgments relate to characters who are crucial to the narrative outside of harry's feelings towards them - he's wrong to trust the teenage tom riddle in chamber of secrets, he's wrong to trust the fake "moody" in goblet of fire, he's wrong to trust "bathilda bagshot" in deathly hallows, and he is, of course, wrong about both snape and dumbledore.

but - outside of this - his judgements are usually proven to be right [and, indeed, his good instincts are lampshaded by the narrative in deathly hallows, when lupin literally says this]. and so we are supposed to assume, i think, that character judgements he makes which we see no broader resolution to are correct.

for example - harry's conviction that stan shunpike is under the imperius curse is never taken by the text as anything other than true. there is no suggestion whatsoever that harry is wrong and that stan - a young, working-class man with delusions of grandeur, who would presumably be reasonably easy to radicalise - might be a genuine supporter of voldemort, and harry's complete certainty that stan is falsely imprisoned [with the callbacks this gives to his feelings about sirius' treatment] isn't used by the narrative as an example of him being naive and self-righteous, but as an example of the fundamental goodness, sensibleness and mercifulness of his character which justifies his ascent to an allegory for christ in the latter stages of deathly hallows.

and the same applies to ludo bagman. when harry witnesses his trial, he finds the suggestion that he might have been a death eater absurd, clearly finds the jury's immediate dismissal of it amusing, and is unsympathetic to crouch when he is infuriated by bagman's acquittal. he takes dumbledore's assurance that bagman has never been accused of any nefarious activity since without question [something he does not do for snape] and his view throughout goblet of fire - much as it is for stan - is that bagman is seedy and not particularly clever, but that he is also such a transparently ridiculous person that to suspect him of being someone voldemort would care about is idiotic, and that crouch's inability to bang him up in azkaban on spurious charges can only - given what happened to sirius - be a good thing.

but the issue is that - notwithstanding his commitment to extrajudicial punishment - barty crouch sr. is... clearly right to investigate bagman thoroughly.

we are told in order of the phoenix that voldemort's power depends on a vast network of ministry informants. we are shown in deathly hallows that his coup is only successful because almost the entirety of the civil service remains in post. we are shown time and time again throughout canon that voldemort's views - on blood-supremacy and magic-supremacy, on the supposed value of maintaining the class system - are incredibly mainstream political opinions, and we can infer from this that a majority of the population of wizarding britain have the view sirius tells us his parents did: that, while they're uneasy with voldemort's violence and while they're certainly not paid-up death eaters, they think voldemort has the right idea.

dumbledore - and the order - are shown throughout canon to be preoccupied with the big fish. the death eaters they target are voldemort's inner circle - the marked loyalists he trusts as generals. we never see - outside of the snatchers - the lower-profile but infinitely more important cogs in voldemort's machine: the people who traffic stolen goods and lift ministry secrets from filing cabinets and observe potential recruits in pubs and pass gossip along whisper networks until it reaches the dark lord. the sort of people crouch clearly wanted to eradicate, but couldn't find the goodwill within the ministry to do so.

bagman can easily fit this profile - he's presumably a pureblood or a half-blood and raised in the wizarding world, since his parents canonically have at least one wizarding friend [augustus rookwood]; he is clearly relaxed about making use of the class system, since he expects to finesse a job out of rookwood when his professional quidditch career ends; and he is possessed of extremely dubious morals. we also know that pleading ignorance of who you were working for was a famously successful - and, presumably, voldemort-sanctioned - way of getting away with having colluded with the death eaters. it makes just as much sense - then - for bagman's "oh, i just thought i was chatting about state secrets with rookwood as a mate" act to be in the same vein as lucius malfoy pretending to be under the imperius curse as it does for him to actually have been that dumb, and so it makes sense for him to have gone actively looking for information he could pass to rookwood because of some sympathies [even if they were uneasy ones] with rookwood's cause.

do i think he was a marked death eater? no - i think voldemort couldn't pick him out of a line-up and he never achieved anything other than being an informant rookwood could tap for details and documents he could pass up to his master if they looked interesting.

but this would have been what voldemort's ministry infiltration actually looked like - and it is a much more insidious, and interesting, concept than loads of aristocrats fighting and being sexy, which i think is really worth exploring when we think about wizarding politics.

#asks answered #asenora meta #i am obsessed with wizarding bureaucracy and i make no apologies #ludo bagman #barty crouch sr

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